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;;IB»^Y OF CONGRESS 

; ^x-ej'«t |3yt0ttbter General 11. ^. ^T, 




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STRAWS. 



CoDimaf/der and Companions oj Ohio Cofn?nandety 

of the Loyal Legion: 

When the Recorder assigned me for a paper for this meeting, I 
had so long enjoyed and been satisfied with our accustomed orators 
and writers, that it was a shock to be disturbed in my repose; but I 
shall be happy if by your forbearance and generous kindness I may 
throw out some straws by which you "can tell which way the 
wind blows," for there are straws of the mind and heart, and some of 
them like that wonderful jointed tube which nature builds — a very 
slender straw — yet bears wavingly a rich head of golden grain; and if 
what I shall utter proves inferior, I shall not be unhappy, but rejoice 
in the knowledge that out of the barns of your memory, and the deeps 
of your true inwardness, you can select and save the good things in- 
tended to be indicated by my text. 

Let us turn from the restful and rollicking gay, to a graver vein, 
if we ma}^ for it is expected that what is said here will relate less 
or more to the Civil War and to The Grand Army of which you were 
part. No two soldiers of that army, and no two ofiicers were gifted 
exactly alike — except in this — they presumably went forth at the call 
of dzity; and it was easy for thousands of them to lay down their lives. 
They could do no more! Though all of us were to speak with the 
tongues of men and of angels, we could not tell the story. I would 
sooner try to bail out the ocean with a spoon than make the attempt. 
It will be fresh in interest for a thousand years, and the war, its 
origin, and the lessons it taught, cannot be fully known until the 
books are opened by the Recording Angel. 

The lives we led in the army were strenuous, were instructive, 
and in reviewing our experiences, the Old Bonds grow stronger, and 
new lights illumine our lives, and must make them holier and better, 
(which is what we come together for) so that as following Companions 



,\^c^ 






who have gone before, we come "to the bounds of Hfe where we lay 
our burdens down" — God grant we each leave a blessed trail of light, 
even after our bodies have set below the horizon of death. 

Permit me to give you a page cut from ray oH scrap book, which 
will be an open door for me, and may open many a door of memory 
and contemplation for each Companion. 

I quote a clipping from Harper's Weekly of late in 1802. 

SOLDIERS' DEAD LETTERS. 

"Why not write Dead Soldiers' Letters at once?" says a voice at 
my elbow. 

Only out of respect to the old logical rule requiring the perfect 
definition of a class to embrace all the individuals composing it. It is 
a sad truth that too many of these missives that have been wandering 
about in the mail-bags are the letters, and the last letters — the last 
written expression of thought or wish — of men who have dared to die 
for their country. Many of these rough-looking, soiled and torn en- 
velopes now lying in the Dead-letter Oflfice, after a fruitless journey in 
search of friends to read their contents, are filled with strange tales of 
blood and battle, or breathe sentiments that should stir the very soul 
of patriotism, and fire the heart and nerve the arm of every nian who 
perils his life in the cause of his country's honor. Outside, it is a 
shapeless and uninviting mass of worn and crumpled envelopes, soiled 
with the dust and smoke of every camp and battlefield on the continent; 
within, are the thoughts, wishes, last words and dying prayers of 
those who have offered their own lives to save the life of the nation. 

"Up to the last of August, soldiers' letters, written from camps or 
head-quarters, and containing no valuable inclosure, when returned 
from the local post-offices to the Dead-letter Office because they were 
"not called for," have been destroyed, because they could not, like 
ordinary letters, be returned to the writers. Armies are always upon 
the move, and the ten or twelve weeks that must expire between the 
date of a soldier's letter in camp and its return to Washington as a 
"dead-letter" render any attempt to place it again in the hands of the 
writer as impossible as it is useless. The Department having once 
sent the letter to its place of destination, and advertised it there, has 
no legal authority to incur further trouble or expense in the matter. 



3 

Hence the practice that obtained in the opening-room of the Dead-let- 
ter Office, of throwing into the waste-basket all "dead-letters" con- 
taining no valuable inclosure, which had been written by soldiers from 
camps or headquarters. As the war progressed and great battles 
were fought, consecrating in history such names as Pea Ridge, Fort 
Donaldson, Shiloh, Fair Oaks and Malvern Hill, and marking the 
boundaries of each field of bloody strife with the tumuli of buried 
heroes, it came to be noticed that many of the soldier's letters, written 
upon the eve of or at the close of these fierce struggles for a nation's 
life, contained matter of the gravest interest to the friends and 
relatives at home. Some of these lost missives, containing the words 
of father, brother, son, or husband, who had gone down in the storm 
of battle, or survived to tell the fate of other martyrs in the holy cause, 
and which had failed in the first effort to place them in the hands of 
the person addressed, were rightly conceived to be of as much 
importance to the soldier's friends as the letter inclosing a part of his 
pay to the wife and little ones at home. 

"The subject having attracted the attention of Mr. Zevely, the 
Third Assistant Postmaster-General, who has charge of the Dead- 
letter Office, and whose hand is as open as his heart is warm in the 
cause of aiding the soldier in the field and his family at home, he at 
once determined to have this class of letters examined by a competent 
clerk, and all that were likely to be of interest or importance again 
forwarded to the post-offices originally addressed. As the law 
authorized no additional expense for such an enterprise, one of the 
clerks volunteered to perform the work out of office hours; and so a 
second effort is being made to get these soldiers' letters into the hands 
of their friends. 

"An interview with the clerk who spends his evenings and morn- 
ings in this work brought me to a knowledge of the enterprise, and I 
write this sketch with the purpose of bringing the matter to public 
notice, and thus to aid in getting these lost letters into the hands of 
those for whom they were intended. 

"I learn from the gentleman who has charge of the work that four 
or five hundred letters a day of this class come into the Dead-letter 
Office. As they are opened, all soldiers' letters containing no valuable 
inclosure are placed in his hands, and after office-hours he proceeds to 
examine them, and select such as can again be sent to the local post- 



offices with some prospect of reaching the parties addressed. Kach 
letter thus re-sent is entered upon a blank form addressed to the post- 
master, and charging hira to use "all diligence to secure its delivery." 
This form contains not only the name of the person addressed on the 
envelope, but the name of the writer and of the place where the letter 
was dated. This schedule, or catalogue of letters, is to be conspicu- 
ously posted for one month, and any letters upon it that are not de- 
livered in that time are to be returned to the Dead-letter Office at Wash- 
ington, to be destroyed. The whole thing is a work of grace on the 
part of the Post-master General, there being no charge made for the 
second transportation of the letters or their delivery at the local post- 
offices. This being the case, it is proper to add, for the benefit of the 
Department, and to save people from unnecessary trouble, that it is 
quite useless to address inquiries to any one in the General Post-office 
respecting letters of this description. No record is kept of them, 
and those not re-sent are immediately destroyed. Any one looking 
for such a letter, known to have been advertised at a local post-office 
and returned as "dead" to Washington, should watch the posted 
catalogue of "Soldiers' I^etters," which, for the smaller offices, is for- 
warded at the close of each month, and once a week or fortnight to 
the large city offices. 

' 'With a proper care not to violate the confidence and privacy pecu- 
liarly strict in this office, I have been allowed to notice the character 
of some of these letters. Here is one written by T. T. H., Lieutenant 
Colonel Fifth Ohio Cavalry, and very fully and carefully directed, yet 
it has failed to reach its destination ; and lest a second effort should prove 
as futile as the first, I am permitted to make an extract, in the hope 
that it may reach the eyes of the bereaved parents. The letter is 
written from Zanesville, Ohio, under date of May 27th, and addressed 
to Mr. and Mrs. Elliott, Baleyville, near Minneapolis, Minnesota, and 
reads thus: 

'Friends: — On the evening of Monday, April 7, 1862, about five 
o'clock, after my regiment had been halted in its pursuit of the flee- 
ing hordes of rebels, I rode slowly around the field, meditating on that 
bloody action, (Shiloh ) and ob.serving the effect of the 'bolts of 
war' on the dead bodies which covered the ground. Various were the 
attitudes and expressions of the fallen heroes; yet as I rode along, one 
smooth-faced lad, whose features were lit up by a smile, so attracted 



and riveted my attention as to cause me to dismount and examine 
him. His uniform was neat as an old soldier's — his buttons polished, 
his person clean, his hair well combed, lying squarely on his back, his 
face toward the enemy, his wounds in front from which the last life- 
drops were slowly ebbing, his hands crossed on his breast, and a 
peaceful, heavenly smile resting on his marble features. I almost 
envied his fate as I thought — 

'How sleep the brave who sink to rest, 
By all their country's wishes blest! 

By fairy hand their knell is rung, 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung; 
Ivo! Honor comes, a pilgrim gray. 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay. 
And Freedom shall awhile repair 
To dwell a weeping hermit there!' 

I asked the by-standers who that lad was. No one could tell. 
Hoping to find some mark on his clothing by which I could distinguish 
him, I unbuttoned his roundabout, and in the breast pocket found a 
Bible, on the fly-leaf of which was an inscription by his mother to 
'John Rlliott.' In the same pocket was a letter from his mother, and 
one he had written to his uncle, both dabbled with blood. Pleased 
with getting these data from which to trace his family, I determined 
to preserve the Bible and letters and send them to you. I have since 
regretted that I did not examine all his pockets and save whatever 
may have been in them; but my time was short, and I felt that the 
Bible he had so faithfully carried would be treasure enough for you, 
and in the hurry of the moment I did not think to look for anything 
else. His remains received decent sepulture that night, and he now 
sleeps in a soldier's grave. 

And now, my dear friends, I would have written to you weeks 
ago, but was long sick in camp, was sent to Ohio low with fever, and 
am but just able to begin to sit up. 

You have doubtless wept over your dead boy. No human sym- 
pathy could assuage your grief. Yet He who guides and governs the 
univ^erse of man and matter, I doubt not, has thrown around you 'ever- 
lasting arms,' and supported your faint, bereft, and bleeding hearts. 

After awhile, when time shall have healed the wounds that war 
has inflicted, it will be a heritage of glory for you to reflect that your 
boy died in the cause of human rights and to save the life of a great 
nation; and you can with righteous pride boast that he fell in the 
thickest of the fight, with dead rebels all around him, his face to the 
foe, and in the 'very forefront of the battle?' 



6 

He died a young hero and martyr in the holy cause of freedom, 
and Elijah riding up the heavens in a chariot of fire had not a prouder 
entrance to the Celestial City than your boy. Let your hearts rejoice 
that there is one more waiting to welcome you to the "shining shore." 

"Here is a brief extract from the letter of a surgeon on the Penin- 
sula to a friend at home: 

'Almost the first one I came to was our poor little friend Dick, the 
bright-eyed but pale-faced drummer boy, who broke from the warm 
embrace of his mother and rushed into the wild storm of war at the 
first call to arms. He was still alive, and able to speak in alow voice. 
I raised his head and gave him some water. He smiled his thanks, 
and said. "Doctor, tell mother I wasn't afraid to die. Tell brother 
Jimmy he can have my pony; and Sis can have all my books; and they 
mus'nt cry about me, for I think I have done right. And take the 
drum to them; and bury this little flag with me — and that's all!" And 
that was all; and a moment afterward the spirit of the young hero 
went up to heaven.' 

"Here is a letter from a wife to her husband in the Peninsular 
army. It arrived too late, and is on its way back to the writer,, with 
the simple indorsement on the envelope, by an officer of his regiment: 
"Was killed yesterday in the battle of Malvern Hill." 

"These are a few examples of what may be found in the "Soldiers' 
Dead-letters," and if local postmasters will manifest the same dispo- 
sition exhibited in the action of the Department at Washington, 
thousands of those lost epistles will find their way to the rightful 
owners, and serve to comfort and console many a bereaved and break- 
ing heart." 



Tlw; letter, there published was picked up as waste paper in an 
out-house in a Michigan lumbering town; the eye of a lumber mer- 
chant, by chance, lighting on it; his attention being riveted, he read 
it through to find that he was "The Uncle John" of the dead soldier 
boy, and his darling sister was the "Mrs. Elliott" who had given her 
son the Bible inscribed to "John Elliott, from his mother," and 
the good woman, with it, had given her i^d-^z^ifrtf to save The Union. 
The uncle preserved the paper he had thus found, immediately en- 



closed it in a letter to his sister in Southern Illinois, her home, er- 
roneously supposed to have been in Minnesota. 

The mother at once wrote a letter addressed to the author of the 
letter thus found in Harper's Weekly, and it "followed the regiment" 
for nearly a year before it reached the author. It was answered, and 
later he had the happiness, through the Express Company, of placing 
the relic book and the relic letter in the widow's hand — and maintained 
a correspondence with the noble woman for 15 years, and until she 
joined her soldier boy who went to heaven from Shiloh. 

After Shiloh, and while thousands of dead were not yet buried, a 
"Bully Butcher Boy," as he called himself, — who had enlisted in my 
regiment, was a hard drinker, continually breaking out of camp of 
instruction, and returning with a load of whiskey from the distillery 
at Milford; himself crazed with it, and by distributing among com- 
rades, soon had the camp in an uproar. In spite of orders, this was 
repeated so often that, to correct the evil, the severest dicipline had to 
be resorted to. 

The angry and defiant "Pat" was initiated into the mysteries of 
"Buck and gag" — while with much drunken rage and profanity he 
.swore he "would empty your (my) saddle the first time we get into 
the smoke!" 

I had forgotten the occurrence; our first great baptism in battle 
was Shiloh, where there was both fire and smoke enough. On Tues- 
day evening after that battle, "Pat" saluted me, asked if he could 
have a few words, and on being told to speak on, he said, "Little 
Colonel, you remember Avhen you bucked and gagged me in the guard 
house at Camp Dennison, and I threatened to empty your saddle in the 
first battle?" "Yes, I remember it." "Well, I intended to do it; I 
was mad at your strict dicipline. I came now to tell you that on Sun- 
day and Monday I saw^ that without obedience to orders, w^e would 
have been killed or captured. I saw that you were right, and I was 
all wrong; and I came to ask your pardon for my language and viola- 
tion of orders, and to pledge my life that you will never have any 
more trouble with me. I wall obey every order, be a good soldier, 
and give neither you nor my company ofiicers any cause of complaint. 
Try me." I could but reply, "I will." — Now wasn't that enough for 
a Volunteer Ofiicer to think about? I thought of it, and many other 
things, and "Pat" thought something that made him a splendid cav- 



airy man, and he remained one of the men an officer knows he can rely 
on! — A comfortable feeling no Companion who experienced it will lose 
the memory of. 

That Union Army — think of it! All kinds of men drawn from 
the body of the land, the high and low; the rich and poor: the learned 
and ignorant; coming from the clearing, the farm, the shop, the mine, 
the lakes, the rivers: — A few of the "Yale men;" a few of "The Har- 
vard Clan;" and the million from the homes, the stores, offices and 
schools — all taught, less or more, in the world university, the lessons 
Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and the Fathers gave. All had 
heard the echo of the shot the embattled farmers fired at Concord 
Bridge, and their hearts had felt the pang when Warren fell; for their 
noble mothers and fathers had taught them to believe in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and to rejoice in the Rising Sun and their 
Country's Flag, the two grandest sights in their earth or heavens! 
And as they gazed upon these symbols, the viewless spirits of the air 
of Freedom ministered unto them and explained what The Flag stood 
for — what the fundamentals of free government are — Liberty regu- 
lated by Law; Law that dealt Justice to all — for there is no Law not 
founded on Justice. If Inpatice were to prevail, the heavens and the 
earth have already passed away! Conceiving this truth, was it any 
wonder that all the people felt the uplift of humanity, that the Truth 
made them free, and that the best and bravest made up The Union 
Army? Whose men experienced that swelling of the heart which, as 
nearly as it can be translated is, "It is sweet and glorious to die for 
one's country." — These are they who inhabit our National Cemeteries 
and unmarked graves on sea and land, and who will live forever in 
our love and in the memory and hearts of free men all round the 
world. 

If asked for the explanation in detail of the Love of Freedom — of 
our Native Land, and our Best Government beneath the Sun — neither 
tongue nor pen can express it — all mental science and philosophy 
fail — all human wisdom is at fault — but somehoiv zve know that when 
Nancy Hanks conceived and brought forth a backwoods son, and that 
poor boy became the Commander-in-Chief of our Armies and Navy — 
the Great Emancipator of a race enslaved — Abraha7ti Lincoln , (a greater 
than Moses,) in his pure, simple, honest, earnest, wise life of devotion 



9 

to human Freedom, illustated what is meant by, "God manifest in the 
flesh!" 

It does not suit my purpose at this rime, to shine in the reflected 
glory which gilds the subordinate, from the accidents of service under 
the most noble of our chiefs; nor speak of councils attended or heard, 
and least of all to tell of the very humble part your speaker was per- 
mitted to take in the greatest Civil War of all history. The few mo- 
ments allotted me are only enough to point to a few stars which burn 
and shine, illustrating the high points of Truth, and the strong points 
in the lives and characters of our great Companions, in the army 
which taught us and the world great lessons. 

When the ignorance, passion and prejudice of men produce such 
conflict of opinion that the final appeal to the arbitrament of the sword 
is made, and the decision is rendered, as it was in our case, it is 
heavenly music to hear our Companion Ulysses S. Grant say "Let us 
have peace!" and grand to see the great Confederate Robert E. Lee 
turn his brilliant sword into an intellectual and moral pruning hook in 
Freedom's vineyard, — and hear all our people say Amen! When, later, 
bad men, cunning and designing grafters, sought to pervert right 
ways, our Companion as President, made the bugle give no uncertain 
sound in, "Let no guilty man escape!" 

After he had filled Washington's chair and was making his tri- 
umphal peace march around the world, and in Germany attended a 
Fourth of July Banquet in his honor, an over-fervid orator too ful- 
soniely calling him the greatest Captain of any age, asserted that but 
for him our armies would have been defeated and the Cause of the 
Union lost, — he arose and with great solemnity said, "I cannot agree 
with the last speaker. Had I fallen in that conflict, there were ten 
thousand other men in the Union Army, any one of whom could have 
led to victory and saved the Union!" To my mind, the best and 
truest of his utterances, — he was in it, True to himself, to God, his 
Country, and was not false to any man. 

Reporting to William Tecumseh Sherman at Paducah, Ky., my 
heart and sword modestly followed that brilliant commander, our 
Companion in the Ohio Commandery, until my brigade had the honor 
to escort him and our flag to Durhams Station, North Carolina, where 
Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his Confederate Army. 

Sherman said "War is Hell" — and he knew! Sometimes terrible, 



10 

he yet was gentle as he was brave and patriotic, — -and the last time he 
spoke in this city — with the far look in his eyes, and the loving 
tremulo in his voice, looking at the young men present, he besought 
them to cultivate the Truth — build up manly moral character, and 
uphold our Free Government and our Country's Flag with all that it 
stands for! It may illustrate the truths — the eternal right, which 
Sherman taught, which we all fought for, and which we hoped would 
throttle the infernal greed and graft-seeking of "undesirable citizens," 
who put the lust of money above the love of mankind, if I refer to a 
Confederate Staff Officer whom I first met after the war, whom I 
learned to admire and love, and was proud to call my friend. I refer 
to the late Col. David French Boyd, who was teacher of Languages in 
the Louisiana Military Academy at Alexandria, while our Sherman 
was its Superintendent. You all remember how, against every en- 
treaty to remain with them and support Secession, he decided to 
support the Nation's Flag under which he was born and educated, and 
to which he owed allegiance. 

Col. Boyd, with every other member of the Faculty and almost 
the whole Corps of Cadets, entered the Confederate Army. At the 
close of the war, was Chief-Engineer Officer on the Staff of Gen. Dick 
Taylor, commanding the Trans. Mississippi District — his fortune gone, 
penniless, ragged, sick, he found himself a prisoner of war. Sherman 
found him thus, visited him in prison and ministered to his wants, 
fed and clothed him, divided his pocketbook with him, and after he 
took the oath saw that he was set free and given employment suited 
to his great talents. 

The bond that bound David and Jonathan bound Sherman and 
Boyd. The Confederate Staff Officer, though an Alumnus of the 
University of Virginia, an experienced College Professor and great 
Engineer, had in the fires of war learned lessons never before assigned 
to him; by his back sights he corrected the errors in his work and 
projected his lines aright under the Flag. When Sherman fell, the 
old-time Confederate made the funeral march from Washington to St. 
Louis, and in the raw .storm, Boyd, lingering alone, was the last 
mourner to shed a tear over the grave of Sherman. 

Girding his loins, after he had been born again, he undertook the 
work of reconstruction, covering the. scars and building up the wastes 
that war had made, by establishing a system of public schools in the 



11 

south, and so carried it forward that when he fell, it was as 
President of "The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and 
Mechanical College," at the Capital, Baton Rouge;— built by him, 
with the mighty aid and influence of Sherman, and the gifts of our 
United States Government, until it stands to-day a grand Educational 
Institution, training j^oung Americans for leadership, and those already 
taught by him, the Alumni, lately returned and gratefully erected a 
Memorial Hall in his honor, on the University grounds at Baton 
Rouge; finer far than has been erected to any other soldier or states- 
man in Louisiana. 

If we think great thoughts, we shall do great deeds. As a man 
thinketh so is he. 

In the on rush of these times, it behooves every Companion of 
The Loyal Legion to think the best thoughts only, that they may dis- 
charge every Duty — For ''Duty'' is the grandest word in the English 
language, and by the unselfish and patriotic discharge of it, justify the 
existence of the Loyal Legion and make its insignia on our brea.sts a 
burning glory. 

I have found the thoughts so vast, and the memories so swelling, 
and coming a countless throng and on the charge — that neither tongue 
nor pen can keep the pace — yet the Old Bonds will make you won- 
drous kind, and you will credit my unsatisfactory performance with 
the right intent, and yourselves make the effort good! 

I did not always feel as I do now. I could not. Many of you 
may feel as I do. I hope you can and will. Looking at the whole 
case, it seems to me that the late Rebellion and Secession was but 
another Prodigal Son experience, magnified b}^ ten thousand times 
ten thousand diameters, and I am glad that Uncle Sam is big enough 
in heart to run down the road to welcome the "Boys" who returned, 
and we will not object if he holds them with a golden chain about 
their necks and hearts, while we make the Old Home ring with re- 
joicing that "The Lost Cause" is forever dead, — and these, his sons, 
who were lost are found: were dead, but are alive again; — and after 
all, are our Brothers. 

Listen to the strain that comes floating down from 1861. — "I am 
loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be 
enemies. Though we may have strained, we must not break our bonds 
of affection. 



12 

The mystic chord of memorj^ stretching from every battlefield 
and patriotic grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, 
as they surely will be by the better angels of our nature." 

L,ook! at the transfiguration smile lighting the sad face of the 
Immortal and now Sainted Lincoln, as from his high seat he notes 
that "the better angels" he invoked have gotten in their work and the 
''Boys'' — from South and North — the Blue and the Gray, — now re- 
inforced by the Black Corps, recruited from that nation which was 
born in a day — all, all, are "Marching under The Flag, and keeping 
step to the music of The Union." 



